Shakespeare Merry Quotes & Sayings

I have always considered The Merry Wives one of the worst plays, if not altogether the worst, that Shakespeare has left us. The wit for the most part is dreary or foolish; the tone is coarse and farcical; and the characters want the fine distinctive touches he so well knew how to give. If some luckless wight had written such a comedy in our time, I should like to see what the critics would say to it? — George Henry Lewes

'Twas merry when You wagered on your angling, when your diver Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he With fervency drew up. — William Shakespeare

Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there. — William Shakespeare

A merry heart goes all the way, - A sad one tires inan hour. — William Shakespeare

I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise. — William Shakespeare

If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni. — W. H. Auden

Heaven give you many, many merry days. — William Shakespeare

How soon this mightiness meets misery; And if you can be merry then, I'll say A man may weep upon his wedding-day. — William Shakespeare

LEONATO
Well, then, go you into hell?
BEATRICE
No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long. — William Shakespeare

ROSALIND (AS GANYMEDE): And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad
and to travel for it to. — William Shakespeare

Twas never merry world Since lowly feigning was called compliment. — William Shakespeare

I am never merry when I hear sweet music. — William Shakespeare

What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within's two hours. — William Shakespeare

Against ill chances men are ever merry,
But heaviness foreruns the good event. — William Shakespeare

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too! — William Shakespeare

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who! - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doe blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who! - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. — William Shakespeare

Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare's kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

ROSALIND
Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her.
ORLANDO
Forever and a day.
ROSALIND
Say "a day" without the "ever." No, no, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock- pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more newfangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep. — William Shakespeare

Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
Are not you he?'
'Thou speak'st aright;
I am that merry wanderer of the night. — William Shakespeare

The Prince's fool! Ha, it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. — William Shakespeare

As merry as the day is long. — William Shakespeare

Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast. — Oscar Wilde

Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird's throat;
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather. — William Shakespeare

To be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. — William Shakespeare

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. — William Shakespeare

Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us anything. — William Shakespeare

Thou mak'st me merry: I am full of pleasure; let us be jocund — William Shakespeare